Encounter with Amazon.com

“Dread!” I thought. “Another e-mail from Amazon suggesting I review my “Subscribe-and-Save.”
I’m running out of dog-food, so I need to verify Amazon is about to ship me a bag.
“Subscribe-and-Save” is a bit where Amazon ships me a bag of dog-food every month (or two) to save money.
You sign up for regular shipments.
People Subscribe-and-Save Pampers®, for example.
Last month it looked like I should skip, so I did after madness and calling my sister-in-law in south FL.
I call her my Amazon-lady, which isn’t fair, because she’s not “Amazon-Lady” at the Canandaigua YMCA, muscle-bound ********, a nice lady, but striding around like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I started dorking around. Utter madness ensued. An hour passed. Finally “How come I gotta call my sister-in-law in Floridy every time I fiddle Amazon?”
I called her up. We were both at our ‘pyooters. I had Amazon on, and so did she.
“I’ve already blown an hour,” I screamed. “This is not progress! All I had was a simple question, but it’s not answered. What I get is a deluge of madness.”
She opened my account, and suggested I call their secret help-desk based in India.
We dorked around, trying this link and that, all of which seemed to lead to what’s pictured above, a site that’s no help at all.
And of course every time I tried to do anything it wanted me to log in. Security, ya know. Techy alert!
Generally my log-ins failed. “Wrong password” it kept saying.
Might it say “wrong e-mail address,” what was actually wrong?
When I cranked in an e-mail I haven’t used in years, log-in worked.
She hung up so Amazon could call.
“We’re deeply, deeply sorry,” said the dude in India.
“Deeply sorry” seems the extent of their mastery of English.
I managed to fire up Amazon’s Home-Page; cranked “Subscribe-and-Save” into their search.
“There it is again,” I cried. “Seen it hundreds of times” (what’s pictured above), “no help at all.”
“Do you see ‘manage Subscribe-and-Save’?” the dude asked.
Yet again I slowly pored through their gigantic list.
Minutes of stony-silence passed.
“Hello?”
“I’m still here,” I said; “trying to read your gigantic list.
I haven’t mentioned it yet, but years ago I had a stroke. Yer list is visual overload.”
“I’m deeply, deeply sorry, but do you see ‘manage Subscribe-and-Save’?”
“Uhhhh, no! I’ve fiddled this page hundreds of times, but never ‘manage Subscribe-and-Save’.”
Finally “Tell ya what! I give up! I can always buy my dog-food at Petco. Yer site is too much for a stroke-survivor.”
Meanwhile Amazon’s e-mail is telling me my dog-food will deliver next week.
Yet my sister-in-law, fiddling my Amazon account, deduced I have no Subscribe-and-Save.
Her I trust, but not Amazon.
We’ll see if it arrives. If not, Petco.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.